


Promises Kept

by Leahelisabeth (fortheloveofcamelot)



Series: Twinyards Appreciation Week [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Child Abuse, Drug Addiction, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Family Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 03:05:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12572348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortheloveofcamelot/pseuds/Leahelisabeth
Summary: Nicky Hemmick is way over his head.  He's left his loving boyfriend in Germany to return to USA and take care of his cousins, one an emotionless monster and the other a mercurial drug addict.  No one believes he can handle it, definitely not his father, maybe Nicky doesn't even believe it himself.  But he made a promise and he is going to keep it, no matter what.





	Promises Kept

Nicky locked the door behind his father and heaved a shaky sigh. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the door for just a moment before putting on the biggest smile he could manage and turning to the two boys standing behind him. They were staring.

The first was scowling. His hands shook faintly and he was pale, well paler than usual. He had dropped his duffel bag to the floor and crossed his arms, effectively shutting Nicky out. “What now?” Aaron Minyard growled.

Nicky looked to the other boy but there was no help coming from that quarter. Andrew still had his bag hoisted over his shoulder and he studied Nicky’s face with bored disinterest. He didn’t bother to shut Nicky out, but neither did Nicky think he was open and inviting. It was as if he was completely indifferent to Nicky, as if his mother hadn’t just died and his life hadn’t been uprooted yet again.

Nicky could feel his smile faltering but he made himself keep it going. “Well, I call the ground floor bedroom so you two can argue over the ones upstairs. I’m going to order pizza for dinner so if you want something other than Pepperoni or Hawaiian, speak up now.”

“No olives or anchovies,” Aaron spat before picking up his duffel bag, throwing it over his shoulder and stalking upstairs.

Andrew studied Nicky warily for another minute or two. Nicky did his best to appear non threatening. Eventually he nodded and backed away toward the stairs. He kept Nicky in view, glancing over his shoulder until he climbed up and Nicky was out of view. Nicky heaved a huge sigh and sank down against the door before reaching for his phone to order the pizza. What the hell had he been thinking?

That question lingered over the next few days as he found himself trying to learn how to run a household when two of the occupants were little more than ghosts. He saw them briefly at the beginning of meals when they came down to grab the food and take it up to their rooms, and once one of them walked in on him while he was brushing his teeth but turned and left before Nicky could even figure out which twin he had just seen.

It was a full week before Andrew even spoke to him and even then, it was only to strongly suggest that Nicky add ice cream to the list, preferably one stuffed full with chocolate fudge and nuts. Nicky lay awake in bed that night and cried. He hadn’t been out of the house except to grocery shop. He didn’t know how the hell he was supposed to find a job when he wasn’t sure if he could leave his cousins home alone without them burning the place down. And he was lonely. He missed Erik like a lost limb. And what difference could he really make in this situation. He wasn’t making their lives better. HE should just call his father in the morning. He could be on a plane to Germany in less than 24 hours. He fell asleep before he could come up with a solution.

Nicky woke up at 3 am and crawled out of bed to the bathroom down the hallway. As he staggered back to his room, he heard a key turning in the lock and walked into the kitchen.

“Aaron?” he asked softly as the boy stumbled into the table while trying to take off his shoes. He flipped on the light and the boy cursed at him and closed his eyes but not before Nicky saw the boy’s dilated pupils. The kid was tweaked out of his mind. “What did you take?” Nicky demanded.

“None of your fucking business,” Aaron shouted, trying to shove his way past Nicky to the stairs.

“Yes, it is my fucking business. I’m your guardian and I don’t want you to die in my care,” Nicky shouted back.

“Nobody asked you,” Aaron snarled.

Nicky paused, mouth open, because Aaron is right. Nobody asked him. No one was making him put himself through this. He could quit any time he wanted. Aaron tried to push past him again and Nicky grabbed his arm by reflex. Seconds later he was on the floor and seeing stars and Aaron’s door was slamming upstairs. 

Nicky drifted for a while until he realized with a start that there was a figure standing over him. He squinted up at them. He thought it was Aaron for a moment and flinched violently but the boy made no move toward him, just waited still and silently until Nicky calmed down and remembered how to focus his eyes and realized it was the other twin.

Andrew crouched beside him and held out an ice pack, gesturing to Nicky’s cheek. Nicky took it from his cousin’s hand, noticing how Andrew was careful not to touch him directly. He placed the ice pack on his throbbing cheekbone and sighed in relief. He had closed his eyes so it took him a moment to realize that Andrew was holding out his hand between them. Nicky hesitated before reaching out and taking it. Andrew grimaced a little, the first emotion Nicky can remember seeing on his face, but pulled him to his feet anyway, draped Nicky’s arm over his shoulder and led him as quickly as he could to Nicky’s bedroom.

He pulled back the covers and deposited Nicky in bed, not gently, but also not with unnecessary roughness. He pulled the covers back up and turned to leave.

“No goodnight kiss?” Nicky asked fuzzily before he could think of all the reasons that teasing his emotionless cousin might be a bad idea. Andrew turned back and Nicky could swear he saw a smirk on his face.

“I’ll fix this. Go to sleep,” Andrew said softly, so softly that later Nicky wondered if he had hallucinated it.

* * *

Nicky slept in. And he might have slept even longer if he hadn’t heard a pounding at the door. And, as many times as he had considered calling his father and giving up in the last week, he was still not prepared to see the face of the man who raised him.

Luther reached for him with feigned concern when he opened the door. “I was afraid this would happen. You weren’t ready for this. Call the social worker and I can have this sorted out before you have to spend another night alone under the same roof with the two of them.”

Nicky stepped back and shrugged off his hand. “What are you doing here?” he asked coldly.

“I need a reason to check on my son?” Luther reached out again.

“When you so clearly told me a year ago that I was no longer your son? Yeah. Ya do,” Nicky said.

“You misunderstand me. Are you welcome under my roof while you still adhere to this...perversion? Obviously not. But do I hate you enough to let you wallow here while you’re so clearly in over your head? Well yeah, I do,” Luther stopped as Nicky looked at him incredulously.

“Get to the point,” Nicky massaged his forehead with his thumb and index finger.

“The point is that I don’t quite hate you enough to want to see you dead. And those boys, they’re bad blood, Nicholas. They’re going to go off like an atomic bomb and they’ll need someone to keep them in check. And not someone so...flighty.” Luther tried to come into the house but Nicky stuck out his arm to prevent him from coming in. 

“I think you mean flamboyant,” Nicky said. “And Jesus Christ, Dad, Aunt Tilda was your sister. Any bad blood she had is yours too.”

“Half sister,” Luther snapped. “And her mother was a whore.”

“What?” Nicky’s eyes went wide.

“I forgot we never told you,” Luther said simply. “Let me come in and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

“Out here on the porch,” Nicky said obstinately. “It will be easier to throw you out if you never come inside.”

They sat down on the steps and Nicky positioned himself as far from his father as he felt he could get away with.

“When I was ten years old, Dad came home with her. All they told me was that her mother couldn’t take care of her and so we would do it because it’s the Christian thing to do. Mom cried a lot and shouted at my father and wouldn’t let him adopt her or take our name. It wasn’t until he died 8 years later that we found out the truth. Tilda was his and her mother was a fifteen year old girl from the youth group,” Luther explained.

“Sounds an awful lot like the bad blood was on our side, doesn’t it,” Nicky muttered.

“How dare you,” Luther raised his voice and Nicky flinched back. “That...woman tried to tell everyone some sob story about how my father promised to help her escape her abusive parents and then, once she trusted him, he told her he would only help her for a price. But she was a whore. She seduced him. And Tilda would always have that stain on her.”

“You seriously think that’s what happened,” Nicky half-yelled. “Not like he was in a position of authority and she was in an impossible situation and he took advantage of her.”

And for the second time in less than twenty four hours, Nicky was collapsing backward under an explosion of pain.

“You will not disrespect him. He was a good man.” Luther stood and loomed over his son. “And Tilda proved that her mother was irredeemable. We gave her every opportunity. She even stayed with Maria and I for a while when you were young so that Mother wouldn’t have to be reminded of what had happened. But she snuck around with people from her school and ended up just like her mother, pregnant at fifteen, corrupting an innocent young man. Sometimes I wonder if we hadn’t been so imprudent as to allow you to spend time together, if you wouldn’t have ended up in sin.”

Nicky pushed himself up shakily but his voice was firm. “Go away,” he said. “Like I believe you treated her well. She would have always known that she didn’t belong, that she wasn’t part of the family. I never realized it when I was a kid but you have never been good at unconditional love.”

“If I leave now, you’re on your own,” Luther threatened. “You won’t be able to decide two months in that you want to go back to your perfect German life. Because you are dead to me now. I hope you told your mother you loved her the last time you spoke because you will not speak to her again, not even to say goodbye.”

Nicky paled but he managed to pull himself to his feet and he nodded firmly. “I don’t need your help and I don’t want you in my life. And Mom is her own person. You can’t decide she can’t speak to me.”

“Goodbye, Nicky.” And Luther turned and left without a backward glance.

Nicky thought about going inside but instead he sat down on the porch steps and let the tears come out. He didn’t remember much about the time that Tilda lived with them. He was maybe two and a half. But he had one afternoon that still lived vividly in his memory. Tilda had been babysitting him. She was always so kind to him. She had been sitting on the couch reading him a book and he was snuggled into her side. And she smiled at him but she looked tired and sad.

“What’s wrong, Titi?” he had asked.

“Can I tell you a secret?” She smiled down at him.

“Of course,” he said, outraged.

She had rubbed her stomach with one hand, looking down at him and trying to smile. “There is a baby in here. A little cousin for you.”

“Wow!” Nicky said. “Are you gonna get all big?”

“Yeah,” she laughed a little.

“Are cousins as good as little brothers? Cause I asked Momma for one and she said that she couldn’t handle another me,” Nicky asked, spreading his little hands over her tummy that was just starting to extend.

“You can love a cousin just as much as a little brother,” Tilda said softly. “I hope you do. They’ll need someone to take care of them, make sure they learn how to throw a ball, hug them when they’re sad, protect them from bullies. You would be a good big brother, Nicky.”

“I’m gonna be the best cousin. I promise!” Nicky shouted and smushed his face into her tummy.

She hugged him and kept reading the book.

And now Nicky realized for the first time that she had expected that Luther would make her leave but she had never suspected that he would refuse to take in her child.

When he finally met Aaron, seven long years later, Tilda was changed. She looked old. She wouldn’t look at him and he could smell the booze on her breath. And he wondered if anyone had ever known and loved Tilda Minyard like he did.

He looked back up at the house. Everything was quiet and suddenly he couldn’t care if the twins burned it down. He needed to get out.

He walked for a long time, not looking up until he ran into some guy on the sidewalk. The man introduced himself as Roland and took a dazed Nicky into a coffee shop to sit down and by the time he left to go back home, he felt a whole lot lighter and he had a new number in his phone and a job offer for a place called Eden’s Twilight. Maybe the world wasn’t ending just yet.

Or maybe it was. Nicky could hear the screaming from a block away and he prayed to every deity that he could think of that the ungodly sound wasn’t coming from his house. But he opened the door to see a stoic Andrew sitting in the hallway in front of the barricaded bathroom door and to hear an increasingly frantic Aaron shouting and pounding on the wood behind it.

“What the fuck, Andrew! Let Aaron out right now!” Nicky moved forward to start tearing at the barricade but he threw himself backward just as fast when Andrew pulled one of their kitchen knives out of nowhere and held it at his throat.

“You saw him last night. That’s not the first time either. But it will be the last,” Andrew said calmly.

“You can’t just lock someone in the bathroom til they sober up!” Nicky said from a safe distance. “He’ll starve to death.”

“Can and am. And he won’t starve. He can drink from the faucet. I put a pillow and a blanket in the tub for him and I emptied everything out of the cupboards and stocked them with cans of baked beans and spaghettios. He’ll be fine.” Andrew hid the knife on his person again and sat down in front of the barricade and ignored Nicky.

“Where are we going to go to the bathroom?” Nicky asked weakly.

“Kitchen sink,” Andrew replied. “Now go away and bore someone else. You don’t have to worry about us. I’ll get him clean. This is the last time he hurts himself...or you...like this.”

Nicky reaches up and feels his still tender cheekbone and nods.

* * *

Nicky had his first few shifts at work. Erik had opened him up to the world of alcohol but he still had lots to learn before he could actually bartend. Roland was patient and, if Nicky hadn’t been loyal to Erik, he might have responded to the flirtation of the older man. He was particularly grateful that the nightclub had showers, otherwise he might have lost his job almost before it started.

He didn’t think he would ever get used to coming home to Andrew, still sitting silently in front of the bathroom door, and Aaron, begging and pleading to be let out, to have another hit. But it did grow less strange. He brought Andrew food because he refused to leave his post for any amount of time. On day three, he brought a large bowl of ice cream and a spoon and sat quietly with Andrew while he ate it. By the time he finished the last bite, Nicky could see him struggling to stay awake. 

“I’ll watch him tonight. You need to sleep,” Nicky said.

“He doesn’t have the option of taking a break. I won’t either,” Andrew set his jaw and tried to force his eyes open wider.

Nicky sighed and grabbed a blanket and pillow from Andrew’s room and dropped it on the ground in front of him. “I’ll stay here and wake you up if anything happens.” He settled on the floor across the hallway with his phone and prepared for a long night of no sleep.

Andrew resisted as long as he could but eventually curled up on the floor facing Nicky and dropped off. After that, they formed a routine. Nicky would come home from work at 3 am and would sit in the hallway while Andrew slept and then Nicky would go to bed when he woke up.

Nicky woke up for work on day 7 and walked out of his room to find some food before he left and Andrew was struggling with the barricade. Minutes later, they opened the door to see Aaron, sitting on the floor by the toilet, arms wrapped around his knees. He raised his head wearily to reveal bloodshot eyes. The room stunk of sweat and vomit but Aaron looked calm and sober.

Andrew took a few steps into the room and crouched in front of his brother. He held out his hand and Nicky could see a couple of little packets in it. “This is cracker dust,” he said. “It’s still a drug but it’s not going to kill you or drive you out of your mind. If you cannot be sober, find one of us and we will get this for you, this but nothing else. Do you understand?”

Aaron nodded. Andrew held out his hand to help Aaron stand but Aaron pushed him away and stood on wobbling legs by himself. He ignored them both, went to the kitchen and filled his plate with leftovers from the fridge and went upstairs to lock himself in his room. Andrew followed him and went to his own room. 

Nicky cleaned out the bathroom and sobbed the entire time. He had known this would be hard. Sometimes he was afraid it would be impossible. But he still remembered the promise that a two-and-a-half-year-old Nicky Hemmick had made to a terrified Tilda Minyard, and he resolved to be the one person in her entire life that didn’t let her down.


End file.
